Welcome to the Apart Lab

Let's explore your research further and uncover hidden insights

Since you submitted an extraordinary project at the Alignment Jam hackathon, you are specially invited to take part in our research fellowship with the goal of publishing your research in a reputable academic venue.

Submit your interest and project plans below and you will get an email to call with our research lead, Fazl Barez, to kick off the project. From there, you are in action towards publishing and we are excited to be a part of your journey!

Please read the FAQ to set your expectations about research publication and the fellowship. Fill out the form below (approximately 10-15 minutes) and you will receive the call booking link. Please fill out the form within one week of receiving the email. Submit the form once per team and remember to include all team member's Discord usernames who are interested.

Submitter information

Name

Email Address

Team informationalignmentjam.com linkDiscord usernames of your teammates who wish to take part in publishing

Project continuation plan

These questions help you define your project and get in-depth answers for what our co-authors look for in projects. The more concretely and fully you have answered the questions, the better, but otherwise, do what you find time for. This helps us understand what your research questions, timelines, objectives, and blockers are and how we can make this project a success.Name of your projectBrief summary
‍Very briefly, what is this project, what will happen, and why is it important? (You’ll elaborate on these points further below.)References
Links to other material relevant to the project that your future self or the mentor should have access toPeople I should consider talking to or getting feedback from
This isn’t exactly part of a “project plan”, but seems generally worth thinking about and getting project-plan-reviewer’s thoughts on.Research I have been reading or should consider reading
This helps us understand what context you are working from.How will your team members organize?
Please write the MOCHA roles for this project. Often, one of you will be the Owner with others acting as Helpers, our research mentor will be the Manager, and other co-authors will be the Consulted.

Objectives to impact

Primary Objectives
‍What is/are the main thing/s we are trying to accomplish?Secondary Objectives
‍What else might we accomplish?Path to Impact
‍How does this project have an impact?Influence Plan
‍What concrete steps will we take to ensure the “Path to Impact” happens? E.g., who will we disseminate findings to, and how?Methods/Accuracy Plan
‍How will we ensure the project is adequately reviewed and makes accurate claims? How will we make sure we don’t omit relevant information?Scope
‍What questions/topics will be in-scope? What questions/topics will be out of scope? For what questions/topics are you not sure whether they should be in scope, and roughly when and how will you decide that?Failure Modes
Write possible failure modes for this project in the following format:
[Failure mode]: [Description] ([Likelihood]) [How can/will this failure mode be mitigated]Early stopping points
‍We should end a project early if it isn’t getting the desired results. What would you look for to decide to stop early? Where would be some good early stopping points? When might these occur?Time Sensitivity
‍Are there any relevant external deadlines? Why?Thank you! When you submit your project, you will receive an email to book a call with Fazl. Please include your project name when you book the call with him.

Thank you! Your submission has been received!

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Information about the fellowship in an FAQ format

What will the mentorship and co-authoring look like?

We will co-author with you and invite researchers in the field to co-author as well. This means everything academic co-authoring means; authorship is proportional to the work put into the project. See previous work for published authorship contributions.

How long does it take to publish a paper?

We expect the collaboration to take around 3-6 months and after we submit, there are still opportunities and tasks to grab hold of, e.g. joining to present at the conference, giving talks, creating the conference-ready paper, etc. The submission is not necessarily the end of a project.

How many hours will I work on this per week?

We hope you want to work towards this project with at least around 5-10 hours on average per week with potentially 20 hours per week up towards the deadline. This shifts between projects as well.

Will I be lead author on the paper?

Yes. The authorship will be given by contribution and since you will work the most on the research project, this is an opportune moment to have lead authorship on a great piece of research!

Can I get any stipends or compensation?

We will guide and support you in any grant applications or donor conversations.

If we receive funding for the project, we also provide a $1,000 bounty if you get your work published in a reputable academic conference, workshop, or journal.

What will your support look like?

We provide a lot of mentorship, resources, assistance, and of course, co-authorship. Our aim is to let you control the project and provide you with the ability to take the lead and decide on key objectives. Our assistance and co-authorship will be in a mentoring and advising position. We will often co-write a lot of the paper and other co-authors often provide good technical or conceptual feedback to the projects.

You receive approximately 1 hour per day with Fazl, though this will differ by project. Time commitment will be much more significant closer to submission deadline.

What other tooling and software can you provide?

We have access to most large language models and can receive access to any you find interesting. We also cover most compute or experimentation costs below a threshold.

What products come out of your research?

The published research at the target venue, such as Barone et al. (2023) at ACL
The arXiv preprint (often used as the up-to-date version), such as Foote et al. (2023)
We set up website for your research project, such as apartresearch.com/research/inverse-scaling-code
A presentation of your research project for future hackathon participants that showcases your final research project, such as Jason's talk on Memory Editing Limitations
A Github repository, such as Garde et al. (2023), that works as libraries or code repositories to be updated over time
A LessWrong or AlignmentForum post that details the same findings as the paper, such as Miller & Neo (2023)
Any conference-specific content, such as a lightning talk, poster, poster session recording, invited presentation, etc.

Will I receive credentials for participating in this fellowship?

Having lead authorship on a paper provides a lot of credibility in research and it'll be a product of high quality that you can show to anyone who might be interested in your capabilities as a researcher.

Can I co-author with a researcher in the field?

We often invite other established researchers to co-author with us, yes.

How does the lab communicate and work?

We all work in the Discord server and have private channels for the specific papers. Fazl will generally help you define the key tasks and assist with research project management.

Do you have options to do in-person lab research as well?

You are very welcome to visit Copenhagen! We have an open AI safety office space and for shorter durations (1-6 days), you are very welcome to sleep over at the group house EnigmA. Depending on the dates, we might have a similar opportunity available at our Oxford location in Trajan House.